by Nancy Holder
Tommy slid an arm around her shoulders and she stiffened, acutely aware of his touch. Deep inside her a new warmth began to spread, a feeling of well-being that belied their circumstances. Her skin tingled where it met Tommy’s. He gave her a gentle tug and she leaned back gratefully into the circle of his arms.
She sighed and leaned her head on his shoulder. She felt so good that a twinge of guilt touched her. Who was she to feel so happy when her cousin and friend were in such terrible danger? Still, she could not stop the slow smile that spread across her face.
They sat that way for what seemed a long time. Slowly Amanda could feel the tension oozing from her body. She met Tommy’s eyes and saw something beautiful shining in them. Slowly he bent his head toward her to kiss her. And then Barbara Davis-Chin began to scream.
Australian Dreamtime
Michael Deveraux smiled as he opened his eyes and found himself in Australia. Well, not exactly Australia, but close enough. He turned and saw James and Eli beside him. Eli looked disoriented and a little unnerved. James, on the other hand, appeared completely unruffled.
Michael narrowed his eyes. He was beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, he had underestimated Moore’s kid. He would bear watching. There would be time enough for that later, though. For now, they had a witch to kill.
Michael turned slowly. Ayres Rock, desert floor.
And I know just where to start looking.
He had known Holly had returned to Seattle, but his falcons and scrying stones had been unable to locate her. When she had entered the Dreamtime, though, he had known it. She must have come trying to rescue her friend, Barbara, whose spirit he had exiled here. House Moore didn’t claim an exclusive understanding of Australian magic.
As they began walking toward Ayres Rock he glanced again at his companions. Eli had been a lot quieter the past few weeks. He wondered if it had anything to do with the Cathers witch that James had married out from under him. Michael was unsure where Eli’s loyalties lay anymore, but he was sure there was a resentment of James that would work to his advantage.
When they reached the base of the rock, James commented, “They are inside it.”
Michael nodded. “That’s where I had their friend trapped.”
“It’s a big rock,” Eli said flatly.
Michael could feel himself growing irritated. “It’s more than just a rock. It’s a living thing.”
“Legend says that the rock was formed because two serpents were battling each other and became frozen together, locked in combat for all eternity,” James explained.
Michael nodded. “Let’s wake them up.”
The demons flew from everywhere, and Holly threw three fireballs before she remembered that in the Dreamtime the mind was what mattered.
The hideous monster Kulpunya had pinned Jer to the ground; he had one hand around the creature’s jaw, and blood was gushing down his arm.
“Jer, use your mind!” she shouted to him.
Kulpunya jerked his jaw free and dove at Jer.
“Your mind!” Holly shrieked.
At the last possible instant, the creature exploded. Gore splattered across Jer’s face and arms, and Holly fought the urge to vomit as she dispatched another demon in a similar manner.
Aliki was also fighting, taking out demon after demon. While Holly hazarded a glance her way, a demon seized the opportunity and charged her. Before she could stop the creature it hit her and passed right through!
Holly doubled over in pain, feeling as though every one of her internal organs were ripped to shreds. It was then that she saw the demon carrying a scythe in each hand. Too late, she shouted out a warning. Aliki turned just in time to see the creature as it sliced her in half.
As Holly groaned, the two halves of Aliki’s body hit the dirt and vanished. She was more spirit than flesh, Holly realized. She had little time for reflection, though, as she straightened up to face another assault.
Suddenly the earth shook violently and it threw her face-first into the dirt. She heard a heavy thud and guessed that it had knocked Jer off his feet too.
Earthquake?
As she pushed herself to a sitting position, the ground shook again. She glanced up and saw Jer rising unsteadily to his feet. All the demons had vanished. Not good.
Ulu had lain in the sand a long time, so long that he had forgotten how many millennia had come and gone. Even now as he shuddered and the dust of ages fell from him, his mind quickened, flitting back through time, searching for a purpose, a meaning to it all. He groaned and stretched out sinuously. His long tongue slid out between his fangs and tasted the air, savoring the sensation. He felt bruised and scarred but above all he felt alive. He took a deep breath that rumbled in his lungs and exhaled slowly. Then he remembered Ru.
His eyes flashed open, seeking those of his brother. Ru stared back with cold, unfeeling eyes. Slowly the other snake began to uncoil and Ulu felt the almost forgotten sensation of hatred coursing through his veins. Kill Ru, his mind urged his body.
He pulled his head back and opened his mouth. Long fangs dripping venom extended downward, but Ru was ready for his attack and when Ulu struck, Ru was not where he had been. Instead, he feinted to the side and then came in, sinking his own fangs into Ulu. Ulu wrapped his body around Ru and began to squeeze as hard as he could.
* * *
Jer fell outside, and rolled as quickly as he could away from the heaving rock. Several feet away he managed to stagger to his feet and look up. His jaw dropped at what he saw.
There, above him, two enormous serpents were battling each other. Each was the red of the rock that moments before Jer and Holly had been inside. Holly, who had come tumbling out after him, joined him in looking upward, her face bearing a mixture of fear and awe.
“It will only last about another minute. Enjoy the show while you can,” a familiar, mocking voice advised.
Jer whirled around to find himself facing his father, brother, and James. He clenched his hands into fists at his side as rage tore through his body.
James smirked at him, and the hairs on the back of Jer’s neck lifted.
We’re screwed.
His father gestured to the serpents behind him.
“The effects of the restoration spell are only temporary. The two beasties will be as frozen as stone again in a few more seconds.” An amused smile crossed his face. “I wonder, though, if they will freeze in the same shape, or if Ayres Rock is about to get a makeover. That would shake up things back home, I imagine.” “What are you doing here?” Jer hissed. “Come on, Jer, your brain didn’t fry. I’m here to take her out.” Michael glanced at his comrades. “We all are.”
Jer took a step toward his father. A sudden, startled cry from Holly caused him to turn around just in time to see one of the giant serpents lunging for him. He tried to run, but it was too late; the giant mouth closed about him. First there was a fiery blast; then a sharp, stabbing pain, and then all was darkness.
Holly watched in horror as the snake swallowed Jer. She rushed forward, too hysterical to even think of magic. The creature was attacked by its comrade, though, and it turned away from her and back to the battle.
She rushed forward. The snakes began to slow, and suddenly they dropped down to earth, the head of one along the back of the other. Before her eyes they began to morph into something else… .
She ran into one of the monsters, fists flying. Pain exploded up her arms. What had seemed flesh only moments before had turned to stone. Before her was only Ayres Rock—and Jer was trapped somewhere inside it.
ELEVEN
CITRINE
Our magic lasts beyond the grave
With the power to destroy or save
This will be our finest hour
When we crush the Cahors’ power
Witchblood flows through our veins
We dance wherever the Goddess reigns
Though our power seems to fade
Deveraux throats will taste our blade
&
nbsp; “No!” Holly screamed as she pounded her fist against the rock.
Behind her she heard a low chuckle. She turned quickly.
Michael, Eli, and James grinned back at her.
“Now, that’s fitting, isn’t it?” Michael drawled. “You free one loved one from the Rock only to lose another to it. I believe that’s what they call dramatic irony. We have to be going soon. One shouldn’t stay too long in this place—it does things to the mind. We wanted to leave you a little present, though, before we go.”
James and Eli started quietly chanting. Michael lent his voice to theirs, and the words seeped into her mind. Where have I heard them before?
She remembered—a split second before the Black Fire burst into life.
Tri-Covenate, Seattle
Amanda leaped up from the couch with Tommy beside her. The others came running as well and they all crowded around Barbara. The poor woman was babbling incoherently between sobs. She looked up at all of them and began screaming again.
“Barbara?” Amanda asked, fighting the hysteria she heard in her voice. “Can you understand me? Did you see Holly?”
Barbara just kept babbling and sobbing. Alonzo waved his hand in the air above her head.
“Peace, rest, and be restored.”
Her body instantly slumped and her eyes turned glassy. She stared at each one of them for a long moment before closing her eyes and drifting off to sleep.
“At least they found her,” Nicole said into the silence. “Hopefully it means that they’re on their way back too.”
Amanda nodded agreement, but the sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach told her otherwise.
Australian Dreamtime
The heat of the flame scorched Holly. She watched helplessly as Michael, Eli, and James turned and ran. She tried to reach out with her mind, to will the flames to be extinguished, but she quickly realized it was no use. If the Black Fire was terrible in its destructive power in her world, it was tenfold as devastating in this one. Flames rose as tall as skyscrapers within seconds.
She began to run around the base of the rock, praying the flames would not follow. All the while her eyes scanned the impassive face of the rock for caves, crevices—anything that might lead her to Jer.
“Goddess,” she murmured, then clamped her mouth shut. When had the Goddess ever freely helped her?
Her lungs burned from the smoke-laden air and the exertion. Her eyes began to tear up until she could barely see. She lost her bearings until she couldn’t have told from which direction she had come.
At last, something in the stone caught her eye. She blinked fiercely trying to clear her vision. Slowly she reached out to touch the rock face. A tiny portion of the rock face was raised, as though something had pushed it outward from the rest of the stone. The raised section of stone was in the shape of a handprint.
She placed her palm against the stone hand, and electricity shot through her. “Jer!” she cried.
It was him, she could feel it. He must have pushed his hand nearly through the beast before it had frozen. She held her breath and reached out with her mind, trying to connect with him as Doña Rosalind had done with them.
Something faint came back to her—an echo, really. Still, it was proof that he was there and alive. She pushed harder, trying to reach him, trying to reach …
“Jean!” Isabeau sobbed his name over and over as she lay beneath him and the Black Fire rolled over them. She could feel the rage pouring out of him, heard the mixture of hate and love in his voice as he told her that he would pursue her for all time.
She loved him, Goddess forgive her. She loved her greatest enemy, her husband and Lord. Yet she would rather doom herself to wander the earth for all eternity than harm him.
Yet was there hope for them both yet? The fire burned around them. Isabeau could feel its heat, but they remained untouched. What sort of magic was this? It was Cahors and Deveraux magic, working together, fueled by passion and love.
Jean looked deeply into her eyes and she could see that he realized what was happening too. His lips moved. What was he saying?
Oh, Jean, I love you. We shall stay in the fire together, you and I, and let the whole world burn around us.
Then, suddenly, he was yanked from her arms. She looked up in time to see one of his servants wrestling with him. She screamed and held out her hands to him. It was too late, though; the Black Fire descended upon her and began to consume her. She felt her flesh ignite and her bones begin to melt. She died sobbing, reaching out for her beloved… .
You must go now or all is lost! The words pierced Holly’s mind. She could hear the roar and crackle of the Black Fire scarce feet away, and the heat was singeing her hair. Hurry, run! She sobbed, trying to press her hand even closer to Jer’s, willing the contact to be enough to keep them safe.
It wasn’t enough, though, and she knew it. The thin sheet of rock that separated them might as well have been a foot deep. Without his flesh touching hers she could not survive the fire. Crying, she turned and began to run, praying the Goddess to light her way back to the place where she had entered the Dreamtime.
The desert landscape was on fire, but in her mind all she could see was the school gymnasium and Jer standing in the middle of the Black Fire, his flesh melting from his body as Nicole pulled her away.
“Not again!” she shrieked. “Goddess—Hecate— not again!”
But the Goddess wasn’t answering. Either that or Holly wasn’t listening, because the world kept burning and she kept running farther and farther away from Jer. Farther from her beloved. Just as Jean had run.
His heart wrenched with horror even as he ran. Isabeau was dead; he had stayed long enough to see her body ignite and turn to ash. And there was nothing that I could do. It is not just, he thought savagely. I should have been the one to kill her, for betraying me and my family. The witch deserved to die, but her life was mine to give or take. Just as her body was mine … and her soul … and her heart.
Even through his rage he could feel another emotion, just as powerful. She was gone and the despair crushed his lungs, making it nearly impossible to breathe. What was she trying to tell me? he wondered. Not that it would have made any difference. Would it?
He could feel his own flesh searing and melting as the fire burned so close. The servant who had pulled him from Isabeau had already been killed by it. It was a kinder death than I would have offered him.
At last he made it to the river and he threw his body head-long into the water as the Black Fire rolled over the top of it. The river began to boil, but Jean stayed where he was, knowing that there was only death on the surface of the water.
As he began to run out of air he thought, Damn you, Isabeau. I will kill you, if not in this life then in the next.
And he was killing her. Isabeau—no, Holly—ran, trying to outrace the fire that swept along behind her, harrying her. Tears streaked her face as her eyes stung from the acrid smoke. It seemed the whole world was on fire. It filled her vision, her senses, until there was nothing left. No past, no future, there was only the fire. It seemed it was all she had ever known.
As she ran, the world around her seemed to be melting. Was the fire that powerful? Or was this what Michael had meant about people spending too long in the Dreamtime? Deep chasms seemed to open at her feet, yawning gulfs that stretched forever. If she fell down one of them would she come out on the other side of the earth? Or, maybe, like Alice, would she find herself in a world even more fantastical than this one?
Rabbit holes and stopwatches. I’m going to be late. I’m going to be very late. The others will be wondering where I am and why I didn’t bring Jer back. I’ll just have to tell them, he was lunch for the White Rabbit, I mean the Great Snake. It doesn’t do to have tea with a snake, they spill the cups. Just like Joel spilled the cup when I killed him. No, when Catherine the Goddess killed him. That didn’t seem quite right.
Holly shook her head to rid it of the colliding thoughts. The fire
was close; she could feel all the moisture evaporating from her skin. If I had sunscreen I wouldn’t get burned. That’s what the bottle says. SPF 60 stops everything. I’ll have to start carrying some with me. Since the fire is always there, it only makes sense.
And suddenly she was back where she had started, which wasn’t such a bad spot after all. The fire hadn’t burned there yet. “Maybe it shan’t, maybe it can’t,” she chanted to herself, swaying slightly. Then someone was screaming and she wasn’t altogether sure it wasn’t her, but since her mouth was closed she suspected that it might not be, so she turned around.
“Lots of people screaming,” Holly noted.
There before her were a thousand creatures, driven as deer before a forest fire. There were people, or at least husks that must once have been human, small creatures with many eyes and long arms, and demons. There were dozens and dozens of demons. Holly felt sure she recognized a couple from the battle in the cave.
“That was before the cave came to life and you all died.”
She frowned. That wasn’t right. If they had all died then they couldn’t be here. She swayed. Maybe they were all dead, even her, and that’s why they were here.
Focus, a voice hissed in her ear. A circle, the lady had said something about a circle. Holly picked up one of the smaller demons that had long, pointy claws. She grabbed him around his fat torso and squeezed. He made a rather pleasing gurgly noise. She let his claws dangle in the sand and slowly spun around until the ground had been scarred in a circle.
She set the fat demon down and he bit her leg, but she didn’t notice. Too many things to do. Where will I find the time to get married? She felt tired. A nap sounded good; she lay down in the middle of the circle. A lullaby, she needed a lullaby. What had the nice lady taught her?
One of the demons she knew she recognized from the cave jumped on her chest and seemed to dissolve right into her body. Holly giggled because it tickled. Another joined in and another.